What a 300-space test property showed me about BayRoster
A renter has a storage unit and a boat in the yard. Their check covers more than one month. Before recording it, I want to see the spaces they rent, what they owe and what the payment will change together.
That is one of the cases in Riverbend, the 300-space property I’m using to check BayRoster for operators with roughly 100 to 300 units. Riverbend is made up. It has six buildings with 252 enclosed units and a yard with 48 outdoor pads, including climate-controlled units and drive-up doors.
The starting records have 255 spaces rented and 45 open. A contractor has several units; a household has a unit and a yard pad. There are overdue accounts, renters who have paid ahead, and new move-ins whose paid-until dates have not been entered. Some of the sizes people want are full.
Start with the next job
For a first look, I would choose a building and find one occupied unit. Open the renter’s record and check the spaces, amount due and paid-until date before changing anything. A renter with more than one space is a useful example: the person and the rented spaces need to make sense together.
Then look at the Facility summary. Riverbend’s summary breaks the property down by building and yard. That lets me compare open spaces and amounts owed without reading every renter record. The test includes both accounts kept by a paid-until date and accounts billed through charges, so a date alone cannot answer every money question.
For a stack of checks, I want the office person to find each renter, enter the payment and review what it will do. The payment window includes a review step before posting the stack.
The waiting list is another useful check. In Riverbend’s starting records, the largest yard pads are all rented. Two people are on the waiting list for one.
What changed in the office screens
The earlier phone capture cut off the payment stack’s Amount heading. The renter suggestions repeated the unit number and showed an internal building key. In the new phone view, each payment row is laid out with its fields underneath one another. Amount, Date and Use this payment fit inside the window. On the desktop, those fields sit across the row, with the payment choice on the right.
The suggestion I checked now shows the phone number, then the unit, size and building once each. I could pick the renter without reading through the same unit number several times. The internal building key has gone from that displayed line.
I also checked a less obvious case: select a renter, then type the same name over it and leave the field. Previously, that could leave the payment row waiting for the renter to be picked again. On these screens, leaving the field loaded the account’s payment choice again. The account in this check returned to Pay months, with the amount and month count visible.
The Call List was a different problem. The earlier view opened with overdue renters and people coming due together: 192 rental rows, while 55 accounts owed money now. The new view opens on Owes now. In this Riverbend check, it showed 55 accounts and 58 rental rows, with both figures labelled. The difference matters in this property because some people rent several spaces.
The option to include people coming due is still there. I could see the selected scope beside the list and the link to add the next group, without treating everyone on that longer list as overdue. The dashboard and Facility summary also showed 55 accounts owing in this check.
These are the kinds of changes I want from a test property with several buildings: a payment row I can read, a renter selection that stays usable while I edit, and a list whose count means what its heading says. I checked the new views at phone and desktop widths before choosing the pictures here.
I do the setup
BayRoster is a property website and the office software behind it, and I set both up for you. It is not a plug-in you add to an existing site. I build the website, draw the property and work through the records that need to move over.
One-time setup usually costs $1,000 to $4,000. Moving records from the current system is the main factor; property size matters less. I give a fixed quote after I have seen what I’m working with. After setup, the website, hosting and software cost $60 a month per property.
For a quote, I need a small sample of how the rent records are kept, with contact details changed. The setup checklist explains what to include and where to email it. The contact form is for questions.
